6.00 am, we woke up to be the first one to enter the Huanglong national park as the reserve is always packed with tourists. That's what should have happened. The recent earthquake which has impacted the big neighbour park Jiuzhaigou scared most people to visit the area. Even if Huanglong didn't suffer the earthquake, the number visitors have dramatically dropped from thousands per day to maybe 20! It's not a typo, you are reading twenty correctly.
So we started at 9.30 from Songpan. We shared a private car we booked the day before for 400 Yuan with a friendly French couple.
After cashing another 200 Yuan each at the ticket office, we checked in at the gate. Huanglong is often overshadowed by its big brother - the Jiuzhaigou park. But make no mistake, it's a diamond in the rough. The mountain display hundred of natural mineral pools with spectacular colours, waterfalls and wide swaths of limestone bumps. As we said before, with the recent earthquake, the relaxing park was just for ourselves to admire.
As we climbed up the 4 kilometres, the cascade of natural pools and the waterfalls, backdropped by magnificent green mountains, only got more spectacular.
After passing 2 Tibetan Buddhist temples, and waking up the final wooden stairs, we reached the top segment. The set was breathtaking. More turquoise and blue-tingled lakes than you could dream of. And still, we were alone to contemplate Huanglong imaginable beauty.
We spent five hours in the park. We didn't use the cable car, and stop and took hundreds of pictures and load of video recordings.
Back in Songpan, and exhausted by our long day, Caroline tasted the butter tea as a final treat. The result was not expected. In a bad way ;-) The huge butter spoon dropped in the tea didn't save the taste.